AIR

It has been a whole season of Air, for me. Last post, I mentioned that my father was an airline pilot, and I put things of Air next to him on my Samhain altar...the bird's wing, the feather, the crow.

I keep getting Air messages and images...breezes, and you know, the other day I was marking the breeze and it felt like I got my whole brain aired out. WHOOSHED out. Hush about, any of you who want to say there's nothing in there anyway *glares at you*!

Today, we had a rain storm, all day long. The leaves are in full glory now, but by Sunday, when it's supposed to be pretty and sunny and 50* tops, I bet most of them will be blown down.

Air...it seems so benign, yet is so powerful.

I've been thinking lots about words, lately, and whether they have power or not, and how much power...they're an Air thing, I do believe. And yes, power indeed. That old children's rhyme SHOULD have been "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words, YES, they will hurt me". Words will cut for years and years and decades, where physical hurts only leave scars for a short time, by comparison.

It's a thing to do, I think, to become aware of how one uses one's words. I've been trying to, if not delete swear words from my vocabulary, at least use them in a discretionary manner...be able to modify what I say in which company. I have realized there is a very split second of time in which I have the power to say or not say, and in that very split second, I do make the decision. It is very conscious, though tiny. See for yourself if that's not true. Pay attention to when you are about to say something hurtful, and see if you can stop yourself. I bet you can.

I know there was more I wanted to say about Air....my ADHD brain has made it go POOF. Like, well, a breath of...yeah, Air.

On the way to work today, the leaves were falling like snowflakes across my path, portending the not-so-long-from-now real snowflakes that fall so prodigiously up here in MA.

North Carolina...oh, the lovely mountains...NC rather stopped getting the kind of snow and ice storms that it did when I first moved to the mountains back in '03.

I don't mind the snow. Not this early in the game. NC used to be seasonally appropriate. Then it got warmer, in general. I had to move to MA to once again get seasonally appropriate weather.

I have been here for a whole turn of the wheel, and then some. The trees are just about in full colored glory. Somehow, this year, they seem dead on the branches, which, I suppose they are, but they seem...dry. Wispy. Fly-away.

I've always known that the glorious leaf-coloring is the trees dying...I wonder if human death is so glorious, for the one that is dying. I wish it were so, for those of us left, when a loved one passes beyond the veil. How cool would it be if we went out in a blaze of multi-colored glory?

It's Samhain-tide. It's Ancestor time. I have made my altar and this year it only has my father and my grandmother (his mother, at about age 18) on there. I haven't even put my grandmother's hair thingy there yet. I will still wear it to the Samhain rite, as I do every year. It's funny how my dad was an airline pilot, and instinctively, I put next to him on the altar symbols of flight, of Air-- most of a whole bird's wing that I found in the back yard, a larger feather, a picture of a crow. I don't think it was accidental at all.

I feel them. Do you? Do you feel the pull of your ancestors? What are you doing this year to honor them?

It's OCTOBER!

I forgot to say Rabbit, Rabbit yesterday. When I remembered, I said it to the cat...oh, well.

The season is definitely turning. Now, "hot" is in the 60s. That's alright. It needs to be. Yesterday and today is rainy and raw. Must be I'm the only one that likes this kind of weather. Everybody else complains. I think I hate the complaining more than any kind of weather the universe can throw at me.
I am trying not to be a complainer anymore. Gawd, it wears on a person.

Long, long work day today-- nearly 9 hours. I'm not complaining! I'm loving it, actually. I'm grateful for the work. I like the person I'm working for. We get to watch old British TV shows on DVD sometimes, and today I get to bring my laptop (who knew they had wifi?) and cut up some of the 3 bags of apples I bought the other day.

I don't know what's got into me-- must be the season-- I bought a metric ton of local apples and I am going to make applesauce and apple butter in the canner that I also bought, as soon as I get some jars.

One day I am going to make jam the way my mother did-- with the wax seals. I just wish I knew people that ate jam, 'cause I don't, and my son doesn't, and True Love does, but it takes him months and months to go through a jar. Maybe I'll have them just to have them, and think of my childhood and my mom. Who, thank all the gods, is still very much alive and whatever the reason I have this pull to talk to her All.The.Time. and it is driving her crazy.

I think of my dad's mom a lot. I'm told I resemble her in more ways than just looks, her eclectic personality too, and that's OK. Tis the season of ancestors and she's on my altar, as is my dad.

Blessed Samhain. Let them in, let them in.